My Smoothie Bowl Addiction

I am addicted to smoothie bowls. Like seriously addicted. And since I’ve started to make my own granola, it’s gotten worse. Smoothie bowls are constantly on my mind. When I wake up, smoothie bowl. When I’m making a cup of tea, smoothie bowl. When I’m out for dinner, smoothie bowl. When I’m about to fall asleep, smoothie bowl. I wouldn’t be surprised if I started dreaming about smoothie bowls someday soon. The way I see it, there are much worse things I could be constantly thinking about.

I get asked quite often how I make my smoothie bowls. What do you put in it? How do you get the ratio’s right? What are your favourite toppings? More often than not, the answer to all these questions is ‘trial and error.’ Most of the time I just play around with ingredients and hope for the best. No smoothie bowl is alike (naw, how sweet), which is kind of the fun part! However, I have twostaple ingredients that always go into my smoothie bowls. Frozen bananas and frozen berries. Using frozen fruit makes your smoothie creamy and ice-cream like (and it also helps with decorating, for those Instagram pictures of course! Don’t lie, I know you make your food look pretty too.), so you can eat it with a spoon without it being all runny!

Ingredients:

2 (or more) frozen bananas

1 cup frozen mixed berries

1/2tbsp freeze dried acai powder

200-ish ml coconut water

A big handful of baby spinach

Method:

Blend! That’s about it.

Now onto the granola. I’d had granola on my mind for a good two weeks before I decided to buy some from my local supermarket. But I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. After reading the nutritional info of about ten different granola’s, I was seriously shocked at the number of unnecessary ingredients that were in each product! Processed sugar, preservatives, chemicals, colours, flavours. No, I would not like a dose of artificial colours and flavours with my breakfast, thank you very much. So I went home, looked in my pantry and thought “I can give this a shot.” So I did. And I think it turned out pretty well.

Ingredients:

2 cups rolled oats (make sure they’re raw!).

1/2 cup chopped raw nuts. I used almonds, macadamias and pecans.

1/4 cup raw seeds. I used pumpkin and sunflower.

1/2 cup shredded coconut.

2tbsp black chia seeds.

1-2tbsp rice malt syrup

2tbsp virgin coconut oil

(You could also add 1tbsp raw cacao powder for a chocolate-y version)

Method:

Preheat oven to 180c.

Melt the coconut oil in a microwave for anywhere between 10 and 20 seconds.

Combine all ingredients (including the coconut oil) in a mixing bowl, using your hands to coat all the dry ingredients with the wet.

Spread the mixture thinly onto a baking sheet and cook for 10 minutes.

Once cooled, crumble the granola and store in an airtight container.

As well as my toasted granola, I love to top my smoothie bowls with fresh fruit and dried mulberries. I rotate between about five different smoothie combinations, so if you’d like me to create a ‘Smoothie Series’ please write in the comments or contact me via email/Facebook.